No Mad Men either for a while. For Sunday nights, I am currently watching Halt and Catch Fire, although usually I just DVR it and watch it later in the week. It's an alright show. AMC-produced so pretty good quality.

Anyone know when The Newsroom comes back (yes, I can just look this up, but for discussion purposes) ...it's airing it's 3rd and final season soon I think.

It is loosely based on the story of Compaq -- there are subtle dramatic tensions that look to me like the people making it know what they are doing -- like the wife of the lead engineer, who solves his basic architecture problem for him in about five seconds at their kitchen table -- what will happen to her? I think the Mad Men influence is apparent in that story line...

But a lot of the rest of it is still a bit raw -- it doesn't have the polish of Mad Men. Part of that is that the period is harder to capture -- the early 1980s is a transitional period. But there is hope, I think, that it will improve and the characters will acquire more depth as the story moves forward.

[EDIT: Just watched the fourth episode -- so I guess the foreshadowing about the wife was not as subtle as I thought, since they cashed it in right away.]

The "rapture" show, right? But from the extended trailer, it looks a lot different from the normal rapture fare, and even quite different from shows like The 4400. I'll definitely be tuning in, as well.

Before the second season started, we watched like first few minutes of the very first episode and just weren't in to it. Fast forward to last week, we watched it again and we can't believe how stupid we were. In less than a week we are already 1 episode away from the season 2 finale. It really is an amazing show.

...I really, really think that SoA is fairly awful. The script is just flat-out bad. I am told it gets better, but I gave it a go, and got stuck somewhere in the Belfast episodes (Season 3?) I just think the writing is lazy. How many times can they use "I love you," followed by "I love you, too"? I was saying it before the actors were. I asked a friend of mine who is heavily into the show, but also heavily into motorcycles (which I, admittedly, am not), would you still watch the show if it had more or less the same storyline, but was about car enthusiasts, or mobsters? And he said no, probably not.

So tell me -- does it get better?

Anyway, I heartily endorse every other show you have listed here, but I'd say the first season of Deadwood, then quit, and I'd recommend more than one season of 24, although yeah...the first season is still the best.

I found the script lazy and most of the acting just flat-out bad. I guess it's entertaining, to a degree, of course. But just not my cup of tea, and compared to other TV shows I enjoy, it just falls way short for me. I just don't like ANY of the characters, either -- and when you hate Jax Teller, the main character, well...

Anyone that doesn't have Netflix has gotta get it. The cost is only 8-12 dollars a month, depending on how many people you want to be able to use it simultaneously. It really is a great deal and to be honest I'd probably pay $30 per month if that were the price. Obviously you can watch the shows or movies on your computer or TV, but there's also a phone app that works very well.

So if you're looking for something new, a good choice would be one of the shows only available on Netflix. House of Cards is awesome like others have said. Orange is the New Black is a good one too. There's also a some really cool documentaries. Blackfish is one worth checking out. Plus lots of good sports documentaries including the 30 for 30 series. Actually, I believe of all of them The Fab Five has gotten the highest ratings which is pretty darn cool.

My personal recommendation though would be Dexter which Netflix just added. Definitely one of my favorites. It's pretty suspenseful and has a unique and interesting plot. The only thing is that it's one of those shows that makes you anxious to see the next episode and then unintentionally watch for like eight hours straight.

The first 4 seasons are fantastic stuff no doubt, but I would give major warning to anyone who wants to watch beyond that, as it very quickly become a pathetic, audience-insulting, disaster of a shit-show in the blink of an eye. Looking back at the first 4 seasons, I guess some of the writing on the wall was there for a fall from grace, but boy... it's like the writers, actors, and production team (save Jennifer Carpenter, who only got better as the series progressed) all took a collective dump after season 4 and looked to make the worst show afterwards, in every way possible.

It's almost worth watching in a perverse way to see an epic train wreck the likes of which TV rarely sees, but if you're coming in cold I'd just stop at the high that was season 4 and leave it at that.

Season three just ended on BBC America. If you haven't seen it, go back and watch from the beginning. The actress who plays the part of all the "sisters" is amazing. Each character has her own personality and mannerisms.

If that description doesn't hook you, then you should know it's filmed in Canada and... Stauskus! OK. Nik has nothing to do with the show but still Canada, Stauskus, woo woo!

Yeah, I'll go with this one - my wife and I have spent the last couple weeks getting caught up with "Orphan Black", and it is a pretty cool show. Tatiana Maslany - I think that's who it is - is an incredibly gifted actress to be able to do what she does in this series. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who wants to invest time in some good science fiction.

Yeah, no GoT really sucks. But a couple of new shows I've been watching and am now really into are Penny Dreadful (Sunday nights) and Salem (Thursday nights). And I too am looking forward to The Leftovers and Strain based on the trailers I've seen.

of orange is the new black. Got through 12 episodes in about 4 days with the girlfriend. It's very refreshing to watch a high quality show that stars a majority female cast. Like most shows, it has it's ups and downs, and I found it extremely hard to connect to Piper the first 2-3 episodes. But it really picked up after that. I think the criticism aimed at the show and book is valid, but I enjoy it anyway.

Now, if you haven't seen the premier season of true detective, go watch that. If you're into a show that reallllly develops it's characters and has a decent plot, it is the show for you. For me, that single season would win against seasons 3 and 4 of the wire and breaking bad.

I wanted to give up on Orange about 20 minutes into the pilot episode of Season 1. It's just not that good. And episode 2 isn't great, either -- but certainly better than the first one. But by episode 3, I was completely hooked.

True Detective is easily in my top 5 in the past 10 years of TV for me, even though it has a whopping single season under its belt. But wow, what a season it was. I'm just worried that I'm going to be let down in Season 2.

Now that Game of Thrones is caught up through the books that don't suck ass, the show is probably going to start going south. It was already starting to drift in that direction somewhat, although I still liked season 4 a lot. These HBO shows -- they start off tight and then they slowly drift in various directions to the point where there are four or five different stories happening simultaneously, half of which are about ancillary characters that nobody gives a fuck about.

GoT is only about two seasons away from passing George RR entirely. Maybe they can write the last two books for him.

it ate up too much of the major plot stories, skipping many of the smaller stories that really help to solidify character development and choosing instead to jump to later books. It made for great tv, but i fear that without more book material, the show has moved too fast.

The challenge is keeping the cast together long enough for a long run. Especially for a successful show that launches (or re-launches) the careers of the cast. People start getting major offers for movies, people don't want to get typecast, and so on. This isn't a sitcom.

In my mind, the prime example of this is Battlestar Gallactica, which fell apart in its final season for two reasons -- [1] the long hiatus imposed by the television writers' strike, which was just bad timing for the producers, and [2] the loss of Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben), who was integral to the Kara Thrace storyline -- everything leading up to the final season indicated Leoben held the key to that. But they lost him to a major role in the X-Files movie -- he was not available for BSG's final season. Their attempt to redirect Kara's story away from him was a disaster.

So the GoT producers are on a clock. They've got maybe seven seasons to work with before they run the risk of losing one of the core actors. My understanding is they have the approval (i.e., money) for two more seasons, so no doubt the necessary actors are already under contract for the next two seasons. I think much of a seventh season of the series is also feasible, as apparently Martin has already finished the resolutions to the A Dance with Dragons cliffhangers for the sixth book (The Winds of Winter).

The seventh and final book, though, is likely to be more than four years away. I wouldn't be surprised to see an eighth season, built on whatever he has completed of the final book at that point. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the final book come out after the final season of the HBO series.

There are rumors of an eighth book, but if true I think that is likely to be similar to the problem that resulted in the fourth and fifth books -- too much material for a single book, so he splits it into two volumes. Let's hope he has learned his lesson and he doesn't decide to split them the same way...

I am a big Game of Thrones fan, but my favorite show of the past year is Hannibal, just a simply amazing show. Dark, Disturbing, Mads Mikkelsen is amazing as Lecter. I just got caught up on Fringe on Netflix, that was a great show and don't know how John Noble didn't get an Oscar. Person of Interest is another top notch show that I would put up to anything on cable. Season 3 just ended with the second best finale of the tv season behind Hannibal. Parks and Rec is a great comedy that just keeps delivering, and Community had a great final year.

Orphan Black was ok, it was hard to get into. Dexter had 3 great seasons, 1,2 and 4, but really got silly towards the end. Breaking bad was excellent all the way through, and Mad Men is just not that good in my opinion, too many really unlikeable characters.

I can't say it was the best show I've ever seen, but I really thought the two leads were very solid, and it had some interesting twists and turns. It also was a nice "looking" show, and really set the gloomy mood nicely. Definitely Twin Peaks-esque at times, although much more straightforward and less, well...weird. Does it really rain that much in Seattle, though?

Anyway, as I logged into Netflix this evening, I see that it is going to be brought back for a 4th season on Netflix, starting August 1. Gotta love that. I really like Netflix as a medium for continuing quality television shows that were cancelled before their time. It's just too damn bad that kind of option wasn't around in 1999 for, say, Freaks & Geeks.

The Killing was just too slow for me. I loved the wierdness of Twin Peaks, as it was totally David Lynch. I watched the first season of Killing and it just went nowhere, so I didn't invest time in the other seasons. Very well acted though.

They messed up by promising an ending in the last episode of Season 1, and then ended up kinda needlessly dragging out that storyline across Season 2. A decent enough ending was finally had, but the storyline went on far too long.

And yes, I agree -- some of the episodes in Season 1 could have been axed completely; most notably, the episode where Linden's son goes missing/runs off. It's no wonder they couldn't finish the story in a single season if they were willing to bring the plot to a grinding halt.

I actually thought Season 3 was the best, as that season delved into Linden's past (the past that they kept dropping not-so-subtle hints about in the first two seasons) and featured perhaps the finest acting of the entire series to date with Peter Sarsgaard's portrayal of an inmate on death row. It's well worth the watch.